Hallelujah
by junebug13669
Summary: It is exactly 156 years, 9 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 11 hours, 13 minutes and 7 8, 9, 10  seconds after they defeated the bastard hybrid, Klaus, and she and the Salvatore brothers  vanish from Mystic Falls, Virginia.
1. Baby, I've Been Here Before

It is exactly 156 years, 9 months, 2 weeks, 5 days, 11 hours, 13 minutes and 7(8, 9, 10) seconds after they defeated the bastard hybrid, Klaus, and she(and the Salvatore brothers) vanish from Mystic Falls, Virginia, never to return until they've long been forgotten.

Stefan tells her that it gets easier as the world moves around them, it gets less and less painful to build a life and leave it. He tells her that they are like living journals, even as he writes his thoughts in a different journal every six months or so. He tells her that it helps to organize his thoughts, rather than having them bounce around his head until he cracks.

It's important not to crack when you're a vampire that's been around for a while, he makes sure to tell her.

Her first journal(and every one after that) is a powder green, leather-bound thing, stamped with some sort of pattern(this is the only thing that changes over time), that can fit easily into a purse or bag. Stefan tells her that she can store them in one of the rooms at the Boarding House, if she'd like, when(if) they return to Mystic Falls. He tells her she can have the room since she won't have any relatives to depend on.

She leaves with Damon a week after Stefan tells her this, choosing to live it up with the bad boy rather than spend her time depressed about something she has no control over.

They make their way through the States, Europe, Asia. Damon takes her to Paris one time, leading her along all the romantic venues and playing along so wonderfully she almost believes it despite knowing that he still carries a smoking torch for a woman that he can never have.

Her skin still burns from the touch of an unwilling traitor and she can still feel his poison running through her veins.

Ninety years after she leaves(which is thirty years after Damon leaves her with nothing but an apologetic note on the pillow next to her head), she finds Stefan again in Chicago and decides to relax for a few years, laying low, but that gets boring after twenty years or so.

Ten years later, she expresses her longing for home and Stefan tells her to wait. It's too soon for them to return quite yet.

Caroline has a tantrum then, throwing things across the apartment and yelling that she _wants to go __**home**_! She wants to see Bonnie's children and visit her mother and Matt and _god damn you Stefan just because you don't want to accept that Elena's moved on and __**died**_**-**

Caroline knows that she's crossed a line that she can quite possibly never uncross when Stefan winces away from her and leaves the room.

She leaves the next day without saying goodbye.

Twenty years afterwards, she runs into Elijah again and they spend time travelling with intent.

Elijah is a gentle soul in Caroline's opinion, one who does not like to use violence or anger, but will if necessary, in self defense or to protect someone he loves. She only discovers this because he manages to dissuade Rebekah from ripping Caroline's head off when they meet by accident in Beijing.

Caroline is clinging desperately to Elijah when he finally gets her back to their current residence and she tearfully begs him to save her.

He is gone sixteen years after having fallen in bed with her that night and she lays in the silk sheets, white curtains blowing gently in the morning breeze, when she decides that it's time to go home.

She gets waylaid in Spain for a few months before she actually can make it back to the States and then, despite what her heart wants, her mind is afraid to face the truth so she spends nearly three weeks schlepping around just outside of Mystic Falls before she can bring herself to actually set foot inside the town lines.

She arrives at dawn and visits the Boarding House, heart falling into her stomach when she steps over the threshold with no resistance. She wanders the mansion for hours before finally choosing a room and tossing herself beneath the covers to sleep for a few more hours, waking just before noon.

She rolls over and shakes her head at her stubbornness. She's Caroline Forbes, after all! She is wonder woman! She is better than this!

_But_, she thinks, _the past shouldn't be so daunting_.

She manages to throw herself together and make her way into town, stepping inside the Mystic Grill and breathing deeply.

Her eyes pop open when a familiar scent tickles her nose and another that is vaguely familiar but she can't _quite_ place it. She makes her way up to the bar and sits, taking in the company inside the grill as she walks through it.

(She keeps waiting for Matt to appear from behind the swinging door that leads to the kitchen and grin at her, flipping his pad open to take her order as he approaches.)

She is just compelling the bartender to serve her when a surprised voice calls her name and she spins on the stool, trying to keep her vampire side in check, only to see a face she never thought she'd see again. Not in a million years.

"_Jeremy?_" she shrieks in a mixture of shock and happiness. "Jeremy Gilbert?"

"Caroline Forbes!" he howls, wrapping his sprawling arms around her tiny frame and nearly squeezing the unlife from her bones before pulling away and holding her face to his for inspection. "Nope! Still as beautiful as the day you vanished."

"Oh my _god_-how are you even here? I mean, now? How are you now? I mean-" she splutters, trying to understand with her superpowered brain exactly how Jeremy Gilbert is still alive. "Oh god-it's that ring isn't it? The one Ric gave you, right? It won't let you die!"

She shrieks softly in surprise when Jeremy's face changes, eyes changing color and teeth sharpening and she takes a few steps back.

"It's not the ring. Trust me, Forbes, it ain't the ring." he says, chuckling as his face slides back to normal.

"Oh, so I've been reduced to Forbes now, huh? Should I call you Gilbert instead?" she asks, sliding an arm through the crook of his elbow as he leads her to a table and they settle into the chairs, chatting amicably.

"You should probably call me Lockwood, if we're going by last names." Jeremy says with a smirk, eyes falling on something over Caroline's shoulder.

"Jer? Who's the blonde?" a voice calls and Caroline's body goes rigid.

"_You're a hybrid_?" Caroline hisses through her teeth, pushing herself away from the table and making for the door to the grill as fast as she can without giving herself away.

A steady hand grabs her forearm and she slides into her vampire visage as she turns and hisses through her teeth at it's owner, who drops her arm like it was on fire.

"Caroline?"

"_Stay away from me!_" she growls out and is gone before Tyler can fully comprehend that his best friend has just arrived back in town.

A/N: I'm unsure if I'm going to finish this or make it a one shot. For now, it is a one shot but if I get enough reviews, I may write some more chapters. I was writing this and it led to the last line and just went kaput.

Also, go check out onecoldn'tsee's Once is Never Enough! Fantastic Jyler oneshots and such!


	2. I've Seen This Room

Caroline makes it halfway to her room before two familiar scents permeate her hazy brain and she stops dead in her tracks, baffled that she hadn't smelled them before but she thinks maybe she was just too tired and maybe, just maybe, she just hadn't cared.

She turns on her heel toward the scents (scent? They mingle and Caroline's nose is confused along with the rest of her) and finds them in a bedroom, facing east.

She takes in the neatly made(if slightly rumpled) bed covers and the jeans hanging over the end of the bed. She runs a hand over the bedside table, hissing in mild pain when her hand brushes across a bracelet, recognizing it as Jeremy's from before everything went to hell.

She can't help but wonder why he'd keep it and it never dawns on her that this might be all he has left of Elena(and even that wasn't really hers to give).

She sits on the edge of the bed and can feel the tears pricking at the corners of her eyes as she waits and wonders what exactly had happened after they'd left Mystic Falls(never to return).

She opens the nightstand on the right side of the bed, hands moving without her permission as they reach into the dark drawer and grasp a leather-bound journal. The cover is browned with age and it reminds her of the journal Jeremy carried around when he hung out with Anna-the Gilbert Journal.

(She regrets how she acted toward the lost little girl who'd been brought back against her will to a world that didn't want her. That's all she has anymore-regret. Regret regret regret regret.)

She's come to hate these things, these journals-they tell too much, but not enough, everything but nothing. She slides open the ties holding it shut and it falls open to a specific entry(for it _is_ a journal, as it always is and probably always would be, with her luck).

_June 5, 2012_

_Journal,_

_I died today-_

That's as far as Caroline gets before she can't read anymore(she knows she can't handle it right now. Maybe never.) and she slams the journal shut once more, tossing it violently back into the drawer, so hard that that night stand rocks onto it's back legs and the drawer slams shut with a clunk.

"Never pegged you as an invader of privacy, Forbes." a voice calls from the door frame and she spins around, keeping herself in check this time.

She knew a confrontation was coming(she'd just hoped she'd scared them off and it wouldn't be this soon. Maybe years from now.).

Jeremy is standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed and a half-smirk that makes Caroline's heart ache.

"Jeremy."

"Caroline."

"_Jeremy_."

"_Caroline_." he throws back amusedly, not moving from the door frame.

"I'm so confused. How did this happen?" she whisper-asks, sinking onto the bed and the smile slides off his face quickly as he nearly races to her side, setting her on the bed as she clutches her head in pain. "How did this happen?"

"Well, there was blood exchanged and then I died and then-"

"That's yours." she states, waving toward the night stand and Jeremy reaches around her to open the drawer and pull the journal from inside.

"This is mine." he says, pressing it into her shaking hands before leaning back on the bed. "You should read it. I mean, it's not exactly riveting, but it'll explain a lot of things you missed out on after you left."

Caroline stares down at the worn leather and her hands tighten almost imperceptibly before she realizes that Jeremy is still talking.

"What?" she interrupts, turning her head to look at him in confusion, blonde curls bouncing.

"I asked you where you _did_ go? After you left Mystic Falls with the Salvatores?" he asked, head cocking in rapt attention.

"Where didn't I go?" she sighs out, blowing a clump of hair out of her eyes. "Damon took me to Paris."

"Paris is nice. Ty and I went there a couple decades back-we must have just missed each other." he says lightly, trying to keep her focus on him, instead of letting it slide to where it won't come back. He recognizes the look in her eyes(having seen it before in his own in the mirror. And Tyler's eyes. And Bonnie's. And Elena's, when it finally sunk in that Stefan really wasn't coming back.)

"No." she replies simply, "We didn't."

"Read the journal, Caroline. You need to read it." Jeremy says, flashing up and out of the room before Caroline can protest(throw the damned thing at him, rip it to shreds, burn the house down with everything inside of it, including her. She has a strange feeling that even if she tried, one of them would save her. She doesn't need saving. Not anymore.)

Caroline blinks and she finds that she's returned to her room somehow and her hands are packing a few belongings(like she's going away for the weekend or something).

She tosses Jeremy's journal on the passenger seat of her car as she drives past the sign that asks her to visit Mystic Falls, VA again soon.

(She _runs away_.)

She spends the next six months simply _running_, never staying in one place for more than a night(two at the most).

She runs from the truth and it sits beside her like an old friend, unassuming on the passenger seat even as the sun beats down through the window of the car and fades the cover. (She giggles when she thinks about writing some obscene picture on the window with that paint she always saw on the cars at football games so that it fades onto the cover but stops herself almost immediately when she glances over and the journal has accidentally flopped open.)

She is awoken violently one night when she hits the floor in a living room that she recognizes, choosing instead to roll over and groan in annoyance when she takes in the quiet forms of Tyler and Jeremy and Janie Bennett cross legged in front of a smoking bowl with a smirk plastered across her face that makes Caroline ache for Bonnie.

"Please tell me you brought my stuff." she whines when she finally sits up, running a hand through her bedhead and thinking of her stuff in the last place she went to. Some backwoods town a thousand miles away from Mystic Falls but not distinct enough that she could(tell the difference) remember.

"You'll find it at the Boarding House." Janie says a bit too cheerfully for Caroline's mood and the blond hisses at the girl before yelling in pain at the monumental aneurysm that knock's her out cold.

She wakes up in the middle of the night in her bedroom at the Boarding House, sandwiched between piles of pillows and Jeremy and Tyler's scent permeating her very bones.

(She rolls over and cries into the pillows, salty tears that she can taste in the air, bitter and sweet and tangy ones that fall even harder when a movement alerts her that someone has sat down beside her on the bed and she can't tell who it is, even when they stroke her hair.)

She misses her mother.


	3. And I've Walked This Floor

Caroline's emotions have never been known for their stability and she can sense Tyler and Jeremy grow worried when she decides that she won't eat anything.

Or leave her room.

Or her bed.

(She decides that maybe-_just maybe_-if she ignores them enough, they'll leave her alone and she can dessicate in peace.)

Her plan fails miserably when she is forcibly removed from her bed and shoved into the cold shower(not that it would really affect her but she understands their train of thought.). She stands under the cold spray, unable to do more than breathe until rough hands pull her from the shower and wrap her in a large, fluffy towel.

The yelling is muffled in her ears even as Jeremy(and it's Jeremy who does the saving for once) leads her back to her room. It's not sexual at all when he rubs her nearly dry and begins to strip her of her wet bed clothes but she reaches out and grips his shirt, pulling his lips to hers anyways.

He plays along and kisses her back, his bony, strong fingers curling tightly on the skin of her tailbone when his hands land around her waist.

She breaks the kiss and tells him that it was wrong of her because he has Tyler now. He laughs in a way that is somehow not mocking at all as she reaches out and pulls a dry shirt over her head even as she steps out of his reach. He swipes playfully at her and explains.

"Tyler and I...we're complicated. This would be a lot easier to explain if you'd actually read the journal." he says as she pulls the duvet off her bed, wrapping it around herself as she moves to the vanity that wasn't there when she'd chosen this room as her own. (Stefan must have had it special ordered and put it in when they'd seperated.)

There is a shuffle behind her but she refuses to look in the mirror until she hears Jeremy flipping through a book and she sees the journal in his hand.

"June fifth, twenty twelve. Journal, I died today-"

"_Stop! Stop it right now!_" Caroline shrieks, the duvet floating to the floor even as her hands wrap tightly around Jeremy's neck and _squeeze._

(And there is some part of her inside, some rational part yelling at her that, really, trying to choke a vampire-werewolf-human hybrid to death would never work and she's stupid for trying, but she pushes it aside even as Jeremy stares up at her from the bed complacently, letting her do this. _Letting her kill him._)

Slowly, very slowly, Caroline's grip slackens and she rolls away from him in an attempt to make herself smaller.

"Come on, Caroline. I'll detangle your hair, okay? That's safe, right?" Jeremy murmurs into his palm as the color comes back into his face and he rolls onto his side.

"I just want everybody to leave me alone." she chokes out even as he settles her in front of the mirror and begins to comb out her waist-length waves.

"Too many people care about you." Jeremy replies, setting his chin on the top of her head and meeting her gaze in the mirror momentarily before going back to her hair.

"Yeah, well, it sucks." she pouts and Jeremy lets out a chuckle, his own bangs falling into his eyes. "I don't _want_ to know what happened after I left, Jeremy. Time passed, people I love died and I don't look a day over seventeen."

"Then why did you come back?" Jeremy asked, cocking his head in question and pressing a kiss to her crown before he is gone and all she has are her looks and a piece of glass.

They next day, she goes to visit her mother in the Mystic Falls Cemetary.

She brings a bouquet of red poppies and Black Magic roses, such a deep red as to be almost black. They are velvety under her fingertips and the vervain sprigs burn her palms as much as the wolfsbane does not as she walks through the crumbling headstones, shafts of sparkling sunlight blinding her even as her feet follow a path that her mind can't remember.

There it is.

It is a black obsidian thing not overly large but still unassuming as she approaches, with words carved into the marble that blur as tears threaten to spill from her eyes.

(She is wearing the same black dress that she wore to Jenna and John's private funeral, the same dress that she wore to Grayson and Miranda's, and the same dress that she wore when Bonnie's Grams died. The dress is too useful.)

Her skin burns as she falls to her knees in front of the stone(the cold empty thing so much like her now that she's come back) and runs her fingers over the words.

_Elizabeth Rose Forbes_

_January 12, 1973 - June 17, 2012_

_Dearly Missed_

At the date of her own mother's death, _weeks_ after she'd left town without a goodbye, Caroline buries her face into the bouquet, unfeeling even when the vervain touches her skin.

"Mama..." she sobs, pressing her burning face to the cool, cool, cold stone and wrapping her arms around it desperately. "Mama, I'm so sorry that I couldn't be fixed. That I can never be fixed. I want to be fixed and I want to be _dead_ and I want to see you smile at me and hold me and I want you to yell at me because I did something stupid but you _can't_ and I'm so lonely."

She hiccups a few times, placing the bouquet at the base of the stone and leaning back on her heels, never moving to wipe away the tears leaving black streaks down her face.

"_I'm so lonely..._" she cries, burying her face in her hands even as a warm wind picks up from somewhere in the old Fell cemetary and whispers through her hair like gentle fingers.

(Caroline refuses to become like Elena and does not visit her mother's grave again, even though she can smell the roses dying as she visits others she's never really let go of.)

Caroline goes home to the Boarding House and picks up her pale green journal and opens it to the last page she'd used and _writes a novel about visiting her mother's grave_.

She wonders if Tyler and Jeremy got to say goodbye to everyone they loved and she can't help but feel a bit jealous at the thought(Promptly replaced by regret at her own shortcomings on the matter).

(She shouldn't have to feel this way. She should just flip the switch.)

She prays. (God doesn't answer her back.)


	4. I Used to Live Alone Before I Knew You

I Used to Live Alone Before I Knew You

One of the first things that Caroline learned after being turned was that being a vampire was a lonely thing, almost cripplingly so.

(Vampires had the market cornered on 'Lone Wolf Syndrome' despite the wolves being around first from what she'd heard.)

The day after her visit to the cemetary she is back, with another bouquet. This time, though, they are tigerlilies, because, though she enjoyed the gesture when a boy would fuss over her and bring her roses, few knew that to truly impress one Elena Gilbert, you'd best come bearing spotted tigerlilies and deep fried oreos.

(Elena couldn't eat deep fried oreos anymore but Caroline munched from the package as she sat cross legged in jeans and a navy blue long sleeved shirt that she'd stolen from Damon's closet.)

"Hey, Elena, it's me! Caroline!" she begins cheerily, setting the lilies on top of the headstone that told her that Elena's last name was no longer Gilbert but Honeycutt. "But you probably knew that already." Caroline continues awkwardly, going off into telling Elena what she'd been doing the last one hundred and fifty years and getting so distracted that she doesn't notice Jeremy standing in the shadows of the old church, smiling gently at her.

The next week is filled with cemetary visits and library visits and visits to the Town Hall to get caught up on her history.

Apparently, Elena had gone to college at Yale, dropped out and went on to become a vet before marrying her college sweet heart, Ibrahim Honeycutt. The couple had three children, twin boys named Jensen and Johnathan and a girl named Caroline Rose.

Her own father had gone on to surrogate and had a son he named Shiloh, who grew up to marry Bonnie's daughter, Adeline.

Adeline and Shiloh Forbes were Jane Sheila Bennet's parents, calling her Janie, a nickname that stuck with her for her entire life. Janie took her mother's maiden name after a particularly bad falling out with her parents and she moved in with Bonnie.

Carol Lockwood died at the ripe old age of ninety three, finally having lost a long-standing battle with a mysterious disease no one could understand but was classified as cardiomyopathy.

Matt married a girl from out of state and went back to live in Wisconsin where she was born. (Caroline didn't blame him for fleeing Mystic Falls. She would be a hypocrite if she did.)

Her name was Kaitlyn Grossman now Donovan and they had a bouncing baby girl they decided to name Victoria. They called her Tori for short and she died shortly after her fifteenth birthday in a bad car accident that left Matt in a vegetative state and his wife and daughter in the ground. (Caroline made a note to visit Wisconsin soon. He _was_ her first real love. She decided that would sing The Bangles in memoriam.)

Ric spent some time at the Salvatore Boarding House, acting as a caretaker there for eight years before he simply vanished. No one had seen him since. (A thought niggled in the back of her mind regarding Damon and his unnatural obsession with Mr. Saltzman while they still lived in town and she couldn't help but wonder if Ric was out there somewhere, living it up with a Salvatore brother of his very own.)

She wound up at the Grill in the same booth that Jeremy had led her to the day she returned, bourbon in her hand and Jeremy's journal sitting before her on the table.

(It wasn't time yet. It couldn't be. Not yet.)

She downed the bourbon, grabbed the journal and went to visit Janie Bennet.

"Yes?" Janie asked as Caroline stood at her door, the same door where Bonnie used to live, unable to cross the threshold.

"Can I come in, please?" Caroline pleaded, lifting the journal and waving it in front of Janie's face. The girl remained unmoved.

"No." Janie said definitely, closing the door behind her as she exited the house and moved to the patio furniture.

"Why not?" Caroline asked, slightly offended. (It wasn't like she was going to kill anyone in the house.)

"_Because_, Miss Forbes, whether or not you refuse to acknowledge it fully, you are a vampire. You are a killer and I don't allow people like you into my home, regardless of whether or not you are one of my grandmother's best friends. She was weak when it came to you in particular. I am not so inclined." Janie said as Caroline sat in the chair across from her. The smug look from before was replaced with one of seriousness that Caroline feared.

"I haven't killed anyone in years. I wouldn't." Caroline protested and Janie shook her head.

"You misunderstand me, Miss Forbes. I will not let you into my home not because I dislike you but because I don't trust your nature. There will always be that underlying _thing_ that doesn't care about anyone or anything except the blood. You will always have the monster inside of you, rather like Mr. Lockwood and Mr. Jeremy." Janie explained, turning her head slightly in question. "You haven't read Mr. Jeremy's journal yet, have you? It's very informative for someone like you."

"Someone like me."

"Gone a long time, Miss Forbes." Janie said, cocking an eyebrow at Caroline's dismissive tone. She rose from the patio furniture and brushed her hands on her apron. "Miss Forbes, I can't help you with what you came here for. I'm sorry."

Caroline huffs at Janie's apology and is halfway down the walkway before she hears Janie's voice again.

"I can help you in another way, if you'd like. But it's dangerous."

Caroline turns on the walkway and stares at Janie's still form, hand resting on the beam framing the stairs. (She didn't notice until now that the Bennet house was no longer white but a faded red, like dried blood.)

Caroline knows that Tyler and Jeremy both know that she's there, watching them on their pseudo-date at the Grill.

They flirt while playing pool, Jeremy curling behind Tyler's form playfully to help him shoot better even though Caroline knows for a fact that Tyler is a master player at the tablegame. Tyler turns his head and buries his face in Jeremy's neck even as the pole slides through his fingers and the red striped ball goes bouncing off the table in her direction.

The ball rolls slowly and stops when it hits her foot under the table.

Jeremy and Tyler stare at her as she reaches down to pick it up and set it on the table, playing with it with the tips of her fingers as Jeremy leans down to murmur something in Tyler's ear that she doesn't catch.

"Wanna play?" Tyler's voice breaks through her silence and she turns to glance at him before turning back to the ball.

"Sit." she says and Tyler is across from her in a heartbeat, a desperate look plastered across his eighteen year old face as she studies it. "Even in death you're older than me." she murmurs, rolling the ball across the table into Tyler's waiting palms.

"But you're still prettier." he shoots back with a cocky, hesitant smile and a smile of her own tugs at Caroline's mouth.

"And less of a kiddie pool." she mutters and Tyler's brows knot in confusion. "Right. Wrong boyfriend. That was the human one. Sorry."

"Caroline, why did you leave?" Tyler asks and the silent _'Why did you leave me?'_ hangs in the air between them.

"Because I broke my promise." she whispers, leaning back away from the table, watching as Tyler struggles to figure out what she's talking about.

She sees the light dawn in his eyes suddenly as his brow smooths out and he reaches for her hand across the table. She pulls them back and hides them under the wooden structure. He leaves his stretched across the table.

"Caroline, I-"

"I hated you." she interrupts, the table creaking as Tyler's hands grip it. "I _hated_ you, Tyler, for everything you did."

"I hated myself." Tyler says, voice thick with regret. (There's that word again, that _feeling_.) "I couldn't control myself, Caroline. And I know that's no excuse but it's the only one that I can come up with."

"Janie's going to show me the journal." Caroline said evenly and Tyler's head popped up from where it had rested on the table.

"What?" he asked and Caroline stood, shaking her hair out.

"Janie's going to show me Jeremy's journal. In living color." she says and suddenly Jeremy is at the table, too, asking her what she means. "She's got a spell that can send me into the journal and experience it firsthand."

"It's too dangerous Caroline. Please." Jeremy begs, grabbing her hands in desperation. She sees Tyler's brows furrow at this in the edge of her vision.

"I'm going to do it regardless, Jeremy. You can come with me and help or you can sit around and wonder." she huffs, dropping Jeremy's hands and sweeping out of the Grill like a hurricane.

What she failed to mention was that Janie's spell is unstable and that she might not come back. That if she dies in the journal, she might die in real life.

(She might be okay with this.)

Caroline spends the next week exploring the Boarding House. (How she never knew there was this much space amazes her.)

She reads a quarter of Damon's massive library and most of Stefan's journals, avoiding her own as she does so.

She comes across a few more of Jeremy's journals, but they are so confusing without her having read that first one that she gives up after the first journal with a sigh.

The day before the ritual, Caroline decides that, if she survives, she will enroll in Mystic Falls High School once more. Maybe she can coerce Jeremy and Tyler into it as well.

The day of the ritual arrives and Caroline(and Jeremy and Tyler) show up on Janie's doorstep and the witch directs them to her backyard, where she says the ritual will take place.

(They can go around the side of the house, thank you very much. Watch out for the vervain bush and the wolfsbane vine and don't you step in my Black Magic rose bush!)

There is a fire and chanting and Janie reaches for Caroline's hand, slicing her palm so that her blood-that-hasn't-been-her-blood-for-years slips out and slidestricklesdrops into the bowl of water laced with other smelly things that Caroline doesn't want to remember the name of.

There is more chanting as she waits for her hand to heal, confused when it doesn't.

(That's when the fire beneath her skin starts.)

Caroline's eyes snap shut and she screams.


	5. I've Seen Your Flag On the Marble Arch

I've Seen Your Flag On the Marble Arch

(Caroline's body burns from the inside out. She is burningburningburning.)

"Elena!" a voice calls her(Elena's) name and she is jolting awake, upright in bed, Alaric clinging to her biceps with a worried look plastered across his face.

"Ric?" she asks, confused. "What's going on?"

"You were screaming again. I thought you might hurt yourself, kicking around..." he trails off and Elena(Caroline) puts a hand to her forehead in silent prayer.

"I'm sorry I woke you." she forces out stiltedly as Ric searches her face. "I'm fine now, thank you. All better."

"You're lying." Ric deadpans, fingers growing so tight around her biceps she would have bruises later, she knew.

"I'm _fucking fine, Alaric!_" she snaps furiously, wrenching her arms from his grip and kicking under the covers at him until he slides to the floor with a thump and a grunt of pain.

Blood seeps from the cut where his arm caught the bedframe.

Elena throws the covers from her legs and stalks into the bathroom she shares with Jeremy, slamming the door in Alaric's face.

Caroline still sat in the imprint left by Elena's impromptu exit, Alaric's blood calling to her inner beast, and she could feel the veins spread from her eyes like they hadn't since she'd been turned.

Alaric stands slowly, shakily, and Caroline gasps silently, clasping her hands over her mouth(like he'd hear her?) when Ric stumbles almost sleepily. He grabbs the doorframe in an attempt to keep himself upright and leaves half a bloody hand print on the wall, painful against the stark white the doorframe had been painted.

He glances back at the bed and for a moment Caroline was sure he could see her and then Caroline was alone.

She discovers (after figuring that Elena was _not_ coming out of the bathroom _anytime_ soon) that she could move through the walls and solid things. She wonders if she was incorporeal (Big Word Of The Day!) or if everything around her was. Then she wonders if she's gone back in time or back in memory.

(It's all very Twilight Zone-ish in Caroline's mind and she can't help but glance over her shoulder, waiting for Rod Serling to appear from the shadows and narrate.)

She floats through the house, taking in the state of it after everything as it was in 2012.

Walking through to Jenna's old room, she finds it in a displaced state. There are school papers everywhere, scattered across every surface. Books that look like they date back to well before Niklaus and Rebekah, Mikael and Esther. The entire room stank of whiskey, with and underlying taint of blood and...Damon?

(She sees Damon's jacket tossed over the desk chair nearby and the smell suddenly makes sense, even if the jacket doesn't.)

Ric is busy pulling on clothes, readying himself for the day that will begin in a few hours and tugging Damon's jacket over his shoulders. Caroline giggle-snorts when the jacket is a bit tight over Alaric's frame but otherwise slides smoothly on.

(She giggle-snorts because he buries his face in the neck and breathes deeply before he leaves the room.)

"I _knew_ it." she murmurs before she floats through the wall and into Jeremy's room, where the owner is hidden beneath a mountain of blankets.

"Jeremy, get your ass out of bed you're going to be late for school!" Elena's angry voice trickles through the door, shortly followed by a loud thump that makes Caroline jump where she stands(floats?).

"School ended _last week, Elena!_" Jeremy shoots back, pushing the covers back and sliding from the bed regardless, scratching his head sleepily as he makes his way down the stairs and into the kitchen, aiming for the coffee maker.

(Caroline is pulled slowly after him, fascinated by this still human Jeremy Gilbert.)

"All about the coffee." he mumbles into the mug, taking a long drag and staring out the kitchen window. He glances down at the paper on the counter where Ric had no doubt left it after fleeing the house and picked it up, reading something on the front page.

Caroline sees the date only after he hums in acknowledgement of something and tosses the paper on the table, draining his coffee cup and moving back towards the stairs.

(_June 3, 2012_)

Over the next two days, Caroline follows Jeremy like a hawk to the point of ignoring every one of her other friends in lieu of chasing after him.

He spends most of his time in the town square, people watching, occasionally sketching something.

She is right in front of his nose when he suddenly glances up and his eyes bug out of his head.

"_Caroline?_" he sputters and Caroline blinks in disbelief, unable to think of a way to explain herself even as Jeremy's eyes unfocus momentarily and he glances around in confusion. He shakes his head and gathers his things, heading towards the Grille with his head down when he runs into Tyler's stocky frame.

The pencils clatter across the ground and the sketchbook goes flying, sending bits of paper through the air like abnormally large snow flakes.

"Walk much?" Tyler snarls, kicking at Jeremy's hand as it reaches for the sketchbook nearby and Caroline shrieks even as Jeremy cuts off his own howl of pain. He draws his now broken hand into his chest like a wounded animal and whimpers, glancing up at Tyler like a stubborn child.

"Fuck you, Lockwood." Jeremy spits, attempting to stand without jostling his bad hand too much and a terrifying smirk crosses Tyler's face as he is faced with the back of Jeremy's head and he raises his hand.

"_Tyler Lockwood, don't you dare!_" she shrieks, her mind yelling that he can't hear here and Tyler freezes, head snapping up and his eyes dart around, looking for something.

There is a crunch and blood spurts as Tyler stumbles back, clutching his nose in surprise at Jeremy, who stands there defiantly, blood trickling over his knuckles, and Tyler growls, deep in his chest.

Jeremy, as if suddenly just sensing the very _real_ danger that he's in, turns tail and makes it to the edge of the woods before Tyler catches up to him and he is thrown against a tree, effectively knocking the wind out of him. He slides down the trunk with a groan, the rough bark carving thin gashes in the flesh of his back as his shirt rides up on his way down.

"Let's get one thing straight, you snot-nosed crackhead: I'm stronger than you. I've always been stronger than you and I'll always be stronger than you. I'm not the person you wanna piss off." Tyler hisses, grabbing Jeremy around the throat to keep him in place and Jeremy's lip curls even as blood trickles from his nose into his mouth, staining his teeth red.

"I said it before, you hybrid bastard: Fuck. You. _Fuck you!_" Jeremy snaps the last bit out and spits his bloody saliva onto Tyler's face, barely making the hybrid wince.

(Caroline could see his muscles ripple beneath the surface and worried.)

Tyler wiped the spittle from his eyes and dragged Jeremy upright, pressing him further back against the tree, leaning in so that he was pressed flush against Jeremy, trapping him against the tree.

"Tell me, Gilbert: does that precious ring of yours work if someone drains you completely?" he whispers tauntingly in Jeremy's ear and Jeremy's hands fly up to scratch at Tyler's fist on his throat. Tyler's hands slide almost tenderly down to Jeremy's shoulders and she can see the purple marks beginning to bloom beneath Jeremy's skin moments before Tyler vamps out and buries his teeth in Jeremy's neck, drinking deeply.

Jeremy struggles for a bit before he starts to go slack in Tyler's arms, groaning, and the hybrid pulls back with a smirk crossing his Jeremy-Gilbert-laced lips.

"I always knew you were a sick fuck, Gilbert. This is turning you on isn't it?" Tyler spits out and it's only when Jeremy doesn't respond that the look of sheer panic crosses his features. "Gilbert? Jeremy? _Jeremy?_"

(Tyler's cries and Caroline's sobs fall on deaf ears as Tyler sinks to the ground with an unconscious teenager in his arms. It is then that Caroline sees that Jeremy's fingers are bare.)

Tyler takes in the situation for a moment before pulling the younger boy into his lap and tearing into his wrist.

"I'm sorry." Tyler murmurs, letting his blood drip into Jeremy's mouth, making a small noise in relief as Jeremy begins to (weakly) respond to Tyler's blood. He gulps momentarily and lets out a sigh of contentment.

(Caroline glances up and sees the outline of the full moon, unable to tear her eyes away even as she hears the sickening crack of Jeremy's neck being snapped. She vomits in the bushes nearby as Tyler holds Jeremy for what seems like hours.)

She follows him to Elena's house and he sets Jeremy down on the porch steps before he knocks gently on the door. There is a stomping and the door is ripped open.

"Wha-oh my god. Oh my god..._Jeremy! Jeremy, wake up!_" Elena's cries as she moves to kneel beside her brother break Caroline's heart and she watches as Elena begs Tyler to bring him into the house, the hybrid carrying the broken body up the stairs and into his own room.

(She is about to follow when Elena's shrieks of rage ring through the house and Tyler zooms by before she can comprehend anything at all.)

Caroline floats into the house as Elena runs out the front door, jerking to a halt as she looked around wildly. (As if she could have stopped Tyler by herself.)

She floats up the stairs, down the hall, into Jeremy's room through the closed door and she floats to sit on the bed beside Jeremy's still form.

(The door slams shut downstairs and Caroline can hear Elena grappling with the house phone, dialing numbers. She has a short conversation that Caroline chooses not to hear before walking through the downstairs.)

Very suddenly, Caroline smells _blood_. Rich, sweet, tangy, doppelganger blood and, shortly, Elena enters the room.

She comes bearing a coffee mug full of blood and Caroline can't tear her eyes away from the bloody gauze Elena's wrapped her hand in as the brunette sets the mug on the bedside table and sits down across from Caroline on the bed.

(Elena looks up and stares for a moment, looking right at her before she shakes her head and turns back to her brother, stroking her fingers down the side of his face before running them through his hair.)

"You'll be fine. I promise." she murmurs, laying beside him on the bed.

(Caroline watches with bated breath as Elena slips beneath the covers and falls asleep.)

The room is silent for what seems like hours when Jeremy's eyes snap open and he stares right at her once more. He looks at her actively and she is confused when his face changes from surprised to sad.

(Caroline's confused heart breaks when he finally speaks.)

"I'm sorry, Caroline. You deserved better."


End file.
